Europe's race to deliver a new era of dementia care
From high-level calls for coordinated action to on-the-ground challenges faced by countries like Hungary, the 'Mind the Future' summit revealed both the promise and the fragility of Europe's readiness.
The message was clear: without structural reform, investment in early diagnosis, and clinical capacity-building, the gap between discovery and delivery will only grow wider.
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Euractiv
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EU medicines agency reverses course on Eli Lilly's Alzheimer drug
The European Medicines Agency (EMA) has reversed its stance on Eli Lilly's Alzheimer's drug Kisunla, recommending its approval for limited use just months after initially rejecting it due to safety concerns. In March, the EMA's drug safety committee said the risks of the drug outweighed its benefits, citing rare but potentially fatal side effects such as brain swelling and bleeding. However, the agency now says the drug can be authorised for patients who either do not carry the ApoE4 gene or who carry only one copy of it, as this gene makes patients more susceptible to brain bleeding. Treatments for the neurological disease remain costly and carry significant risks, offering only modest clinical benefit. But while Kisunla has already been approved in the US, UK, Japan, and China, Europe's slower response has raised concern among patient groups. Alzheimer Europe welcomed the move, saying that they appreciated 'the careful approach that the EMA has taken to identify patients likely to benefit from treatment and to exclude those at greatest risk of harmful side-effects, such as people with two copies of the ApoE4 gene.' "As with all anti-amyloid therapies, concerns around safety remain, and ongoing vigilance will be essential to ensure a favourable benefit-risk balance in real-world use,' Jean Georges, the Executive Director of Alzheimer Europe said in a press release. This is not the first time the EMA has changed its position on Alzheimer's treatments. In 2024, it initially rejected Leqembi, developed by US firm Biogen and Japan's Eisai, before later approving it for a more narrow patient group. The EMA's recommendation is pending a final decision from the European Commission. (de)
Euractiv
14-07-2025
- Euractiv
Europe's Alzheimer's research needs generational renewal, warns neurology expert
Despite promising strides in European dementia research, Hungarian neurologist Tibor Kovács warns that turning science into patient care still depends too heavily on national systems. In an interview with Euractiv during the 'Mind the Future' summit in Milan, Tibor Kovács, Full Professor and Deputy Director at the Department of Neurology at Semmelweis University in Budapest, welcomed the growing momentum behind international cooperation on dementia. But he also issued a warning: cooperation is not the problem - implementation is. 'There is extensive collaboration through various European and international grants,' Kovács said, welcoming the increasing involvement of less-resourced partners in cutting-edge research through inclusive application systems. 'The trend is clearly moving in a positive direction, which is promising for the future.' However, turning research into patient care remains a much tougher task. 'When it comes to translating that research into clinical practice, things become much more dependent on national contexts,' he explained. In other words, supranational efforts may push the frontier of discovery, but clinical neuroscience still lives - and often stalls - within domestic borders. Keep it local Any common European regulation, he added, would still need to be adapted to local realities: 'Applied and clinical research must be grounded in specific national circumstances.' Despite these challenges, Kovács remains cautiously hopeful: more funding, he said, could help smaller institutions take part in research at the highest level. And in Hungary, that kind of shift is sorely needed. While the country has long had a strong tradition in neuroscience, Kovács pointed out that this strength lies mainly in basic science, not in clinical applications. 'We still face a lot of handicaps,' he said, particularly when it comes to the use of new biomarkers for early diagnosis of degenerative dementias. A few centres in Hungary are conducting high-level clinical research on dementias and movement disorders, but staffing shortages and limited resources continue to slow progress. For Kovács, the solution must begin with generational renewal: 'We need to attract young researchers into the field, starting from university years.' The challenge isn't a lack of talent - quite the opposite. Many Hungarian researchers, he said, are working on neurodegenerative diseases abroad. 'The idea,' he added, 'is to bring those brains back and improve the local research environment.' Until then, the gap between what is discovered and what is delivered will remain. And for countries like Hungary, bridging that gap is now the real frontier. Alessia Peretti, Cesare Ceccato [Edited By Brian Maguire | Euractiv's Advocacy Lab ]
Euractiv
11-07-2025
- Euractiv
Europe's race to deliver a new era of dementia care
Europe is standing at a turning point in the fight against Alzheimer's. With disease-modifying therapies becoming a reality for the first time, researchers, policymakers and advocates gathered in Milan to ensure the continent turns scientific progress into meaningful patient care. From high-level calls for coordinated action to on-the-ground challenges faced by countries like Hungary, the 'Mind the Future' summit revealed both the promise and the fragility of Europe's readiness. The message was clear: without structural reform, investment in early diagnosis, and clinical capacity-building, the gap between discovery and delivery will only grow wider.
